in defense of meredith blake from the parent trap 🦎💋🍸
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- Опубліковано 15 сер 2022
- there are dozens of characters who've been reevaluated more positively in recent years like sharpay evans, jennifer check, and regina george but there's one movie "mean girl" that i think deserves some love. in today's video we took a look at meredith blake from 1998's the parent trap and explained why she might not be as awful as we've been led to believe.
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Fun fact: in the original book, Meredith's character was never portrayed as doing anything "evil", the twins just disliked her because in their mind she tried taking the place of their mother. Always thought that was way more modern/progressive that the walking cliche portrayed in this movie
The reason their parents got divorced was that the father wasn't ready to fully commit to a relationship because it interfered with his work as a musician. The children got mad at him and his new girlfriend, because they feel like if the situation has changed and now he is ready for a relationship, he should first try to reconnect with his exwife (which he eventually does).
The girlfriend character is portrayed as shallow, esp compared to the hardworking mom, but she's never villified and the girls don't bully her like in the movie.
While Lisa and Lottie is probably the most conservative book by Kästner and having divorced parents get together again isn't a good lesson for a kids book from todays perspective, the divorce and the lives of single parents are still portrayed realistically and without making anyone a clear villain.
Which somehow is more progressive than this movie from 40 years later.
That’s like my moms boyfriend haha I was young and didn’t hate him but my dad died I didn’t want him around being himself and not my father being alive
I didn't realize this was based on a book?!
@@twiggledowntown3564 it's called Lusa abd Lottie by Erich Kästner. Pretty different from the movie, lol
the movie portrayed it from childrens perspective, since its a childrens movie,....... modern gurlz blaming evil adults on kids is horrible, yuck
Trying to marry a man with children while not being child oriented, as well as marrying said man for his money, was what made her terrible. In defense though, the dad was terrible for not being upfront about his familial life like the twin separation thing. She dodged a bullet.
At the very least Meredith could have asked or Nick could have said hey I've been married before and I have a daughter before getting engaged to her I'm surprised this conversation didn't happen off screen.
Yeah I still don't like her threat to send the girls away. So I'd say Meredith did bring some punishment on herself after that remark.
Yeaaaahhhhh. I feel like I’m the last few years people have been trying to rehabilitate her b/c the twins tortured her. But I’m like okay I know the torture wasn’t right but she is still the worst b/c she was marrying Nick for his money and she didn’t like children! She may not have been as horrible as we thought she was when we were kids but she still disgusting.
She wasn't given much chance to be a good stepmother though. She might not have been kids oriented before, maybe having no prior experience with younger sibling or relative, but if given the chance she might have become good stepmother.
maybe im remembering the character wrong but i dont remember her saying shes not child oriented. In this video essay we see that she tried to forge a relationship with the step kid and was immediately met with hostility. I have heard of more than a few real life marriages that end for the same reason, even though the step parent really was ok with the kid.
I feel bad for Meredith and agree with most of this video, but I disagree with the idea that it’s fair for Meredith to respond to Annie’s hostility at the beginning. Honestly, playing childish mind games with a child just made her come off as less smart than she actually is. You don’t respond when a child is bullying you. I understood when she became a bit more petty later on bc at that point, she’d already been rejected by Annie when she proposed a truce, but before that, it feels a bit childish of her.
Exactly- don’t get into power struggles with children. It just gives them what they want and everyone loses.
Nick should have been more aware of what was happening and Meredith should have communicated with him so he could actually discipline his child.
For real! Meredith already planned to ship the girls off AND straight up said she only wanted Nick for his money. Why are they defending her? Any step parent knows you can't just expect to immediately be accepted. But she took it as a challenge the first time one of the girls got snappy with her? That is some unhinged shit, they are literally children.
My stepdad never let go of his childish hostility toward me to the point where I offered love and he pushed me away and 20 years on, we're only civil towards one another
Yeah
the thing is, she doesn't seems like she dealt much with kids, maybe she just didn't knew a better way to act
My abuela always said to judge people off the way they treat the staff - especially when no one is looking.
That’s the one true insight that we see Meredith be her “real” self when she’s with Chessy. That bell scene sealed Meredith’s fate as the villain for me.
So Nick's a villain too? He supported Meredith in how she treated Chessy.
@@melodyclark1944 Of course not, he's the man so he's untouchable /sar
@@melodyclark1944 no one is saying he's not, he literally is the villain no matter how the movie tried to play it. And the mom too, both were messed up. But the topic is on Meredith, so I think they were just keeping on that topic
@@temp_unknown Can y’all stop with this. The video isn’t about Nick, it’s about Meredith. That’s why we’re talking about her faults. Not everything is misogyny.
My 2 cents is that I would say he’s complacent for sure. Even though we hear him say “please” to Chessy about his drink order, he’s allowing someone (regardless of who they are) to treat his staff rudely.
if this were real life, I’d seriously encourage Chessy to think about quitting. Because who wants a boss who allows other people to ring a bell and yell at you like your a servant? Pass.
Elaine Hendrix played Meredith so memorably, that you loved to hate her. It was understandable why she was furious that Nick didn't tell her that his daughter was a twin, nor when he invites his ex on a camping trip, despite not having seen her in over a decade. Not to mention that Annie and Hallie could have potentially killed her, but it's just brushed off as a "harmless prank."
She was only marrying him for his money, and she hated his daughter. That's reason enough for her to be a bad person. Stop using selective memory
@@gleewhoseline198 well yeah but irl, they’d be in a big trouble if Meredith ended up in a hospital or worse. That probably wouldn’t be just “oops,well let’s move on and forget about her, I am sure that the police won’t look much into it” 😂💯
You’re right, she didn’t love him and wanted to get his kid out of her way…
@@gleewhoseline198 did you even watch the video?
@@gleewhoseline198 as someone else here said, why is Meredith bad for marrying Nick for his money. Wouldn’t that make Nick equally as bad for marrying her for her beauty?
@@grace_1139 totally agree. Like many of these men would NOT be with the woman if they were not young and beautiful. Both are marrying for reasons other than love and in many of these cases both seem completely fine with that.
I was kind of surprised about the lack of sympathy for annie and hallie! Their dad got engaged while they were at summer camp and they found out they were secret twins?
It’s also annies first time meeting her father ever and he’s still too busy for her!
I would of misplaced my anger about it on Meredith too, the dad is the worst!
i do understand that wasnt the scope of the video though, just kind of was surprised, could of torn down nick more hahaha
I mean, Nick didn't know it was Annie, but the other parts are, again, Nick and Liz's fault, not Meredith's
@@irondragonmaiden oh for sure, i was just thinking that annie has a lot of reasons to respond with cruelty in the same way that meredith does and that the twins deserve our sympathy as well!
my surprise was mostly at the characterization of annie and hallie in the video, and the suggestion that they needed to be punished.
Kind of reminds me of it takes two which is literally the same premise. The dad is a moron and just happens to fall into the arms of someone who doesn’t even like kids. He was also too busy for his daughter and just seemed to be extremely clueless. Nick is the exact same to me. How the hell did chessy know before HE did that the girls switched? Then his dumb ass didn’t even realize she had that reaction because SHE HASNT SEEN HER IN FOREVER!
@@Gobi445 Don't they though? They forced their divorced parents to come back and they were rude to Meredith to the point of sort of harming her physically. It's true that that may have happened out of shock but the twins are never portrayed as having a bad time. Like, the true villain isn't even nick but the writers for creating two eleven year olds that have a secret twin and divorced parents and a new stepmother and their only reaction is "omg so cool let's do shenanigans".
@@missnoneofyourbusiness i dont know, i just watched the movie again to sort of refresh my perspective on this film & came back to this video feeling even more baffled.
I think I’ve been pretty generous to Meredith in my comments, but everything the girls do is in reaction to how unfair their situation is. It just doesn’t make sense to punish a child who is acting out because they’re being treated unfairly, what lesson does that even teach them?
Also, the scene where they leave Meredith in the water is directly after Meredith makes out with Nick in front of the twins to get back at them, which was wildly inappropriate.
and Nick also does punish them for the pranks, he grounds them when they get back from the trip.
I just thought it was bizarre that the video claims Halle and Annie are problematic, gaslighting, and manipulative… besides them being children I just don’t think that is supported in the text of the film.
Chessy had good reason not to like Meredith it's not internalized misogyny lol. Meredith got a damn bell to ring for her like some servant. She was entitled and classist but some how she would make a good mother lol. Are those traits you wanna pass off on a child. I get you wanna ride the resurgence of the popularity of her iconic character and the girls were not nice to her at all but let's not pretend like Meredith is a decent person cause we like her.
Thank you! I was thinking the same thing! I love her style and her confidence but I don’t think she was victim or anything. 🤷🏽♀️
Agreed!!
And also there were a few scenes im which she says that she was just with their dad for his money
@@Dany_C. yea I think the jokes about Meredith being the victim are really funny cause the twins were mean as hell to her but I don't think we need to take them that seriously to try and turn Meredith into some hero feminist icon. Was her confidence polish and drive admirable yes. But we can't just put her unlikabiltiy up to her being a girly girl. Annie and Elizabeth are also girly girls too and halle was longing to embrace her feminity with her mother and loved the whole bridal photoshoot and it's not seen as a negative thing it's because she really just wasn't that nice she was rude to people when it didn't benefit her to be nice. I mean we saw how judgey she was to Elizabeth when she was hung over at the hotel until she realized she was a famous wedding dress fashion designer. Lol and her and her friend literally acknowledged she was an "ice woman and proud of it" in regards to trying to send away his kids that doesn't make me think they though she was in the right .
I agree, you should judge a person by how well or how badly they treat the help
I'm gonna have to disagree with this one overall. I agree with you on some points that the movie uses our implicit sexist biases to frame Meredith as a villian but she wasn't exactly a saint. It doesn't matter how fancy Swiss boarding schools are. Why would any child be okay with a stepparent wanting to ship them away to someplace else? She had plans to do it right after getting married. You as a stepparent cannot force someone to choose between you and your child.
Also, how is Chrissy supposed to have internalized misogyny? Is it because she was a "non - feminine" woman who dared criticise a feminine woman? Chrissy was practically family at that point. Meredith was behaving in a classist and elitist manner. Why should she tolerate that? A woman criticising another woman for classism and elitism is not internalised misogyny.
Yes!!!!
I’m starting to see a pattern of this “if you hate this female character you are a misogynist” like?? No?? Sometimes the characters (and people) are just shit
Uhm and who calls her a saint?
@@Freezient exactly. All women are not going to get along. It's not misogyny to disagree with other women. It feels like you can't call out other women because it's "piting women against each other".
@@matematicarka figure of speech. Didn't imply that someone literally called her a saint.
This is a little weak as an argument to me. If your future step children behave this way, you gotta be sensitive to the fact that you represent a scary change. You don’t threaten them, that’s immature. She’s supposed show them that they can share their dad not compete with them. Nick should have supported her but she lost the minute she decided to compete with his 11year old kids.
Absolutely!!!! If this was real life a good step parent would understand that they are threatening to the status quo and try to resolve the conflict with the child. Additionally, after it's revealed to her that Hallie is actually twins she responded in disgust. Not once did she or any other adult really empathise with how traumatic it would be for a child to find out they had a secret sibling!!!
and she is 26 i hate the creepy age gap. i dont trust the dad and she is obviously a lot immature
For real. The reason I disliked her is because of the pettiness and lack of compassion towards a literal child. She even clearly displays the intention of getting rid of said child. I get that the twins pranks on her were bit too much but Meredith clearly had no intention of becoming a good mother or mother figure, so I haven't much sympathy for her.
Also she didn't want to share their dad, she wanted him to completely ignore their existence and send them away lmao
He's an a$$hole to beginning to end, he literally let his kids hurt his fiance and do nothing wtf
Nah, still dont like her! Whilst I like her bluntness & definitely her style... Her behaviour & attitude towards the girls isn't ok. If you don't like kids then don't marry a Dad. Nick definitely should've defended her a bit more but he actions were her responsibly! You can't compare the actions of a grown woman to the actions of 2 children.
😂😂😂😂
So you’re a brat too?
@@societycrumbles oh I'm not giving them a free pass at all! I'm just acknowledging that you can't fairly compare a 26 year old to an 11 year old. Like I said, Nick (their dad) should've defended her at points (which he didn't do). I liked her confidence but I didn't like her attitude
Yeah, definitely true about not marrying a guy with kids if you don't want any and even before things got as crazy as they did, she should have talked to Nick about the girls' behavior toward her and that it wasn't acceptable. But the dad is honestly a way bigger problem than you give him credit for. He barely spent any time with Merideth AND his daughter together so they could all bond and he could get a better idea of how the relationship was going, didn't bother telling daughter she had a sister or even anything about her bio mom, and just kind of expected Merideth and his kid to just "click". And honestly the fact that he'd bring a woman into his life and already be preparing to marry her without knowing how the daughter would get along with her or feel about it is pretty shitty. He didn't seem all that concerned about making sure Merideth was really "mom material" or that she wanted or liked kids. Instead his neglect and following his libido was all made to be Merideth's fault. Tbh considering all that, it's no wonder why he got divorcedthe first time.
Right. The dad should be held responsible for the fact he didn’t inform her of the kids. Seperating the kids like it’s Sister Sister and also never really showing any deep care for her beyond her physical appearance. They’re relationship was transactional and she handled the kids horribly. The kids should have been held accountable for “almost” killing her/putting her in actual danger. Pranks can be deadly if not done right. Personally think they shouldn’t be a thing at extreme levels like this.
As a child i hated her character but now as an adult, although I'll agree that she has some flaws, she's absolutely didn't deserve to go through what basically is total harrasment.
She could have drowned I realized though
Honestly I think the same thing
ehm, didn't the parents already took care of that by breaking the family by separating the twins from each other and not only the girls not growing up together, but also not knowing the other parent and the parents not caring about the life of their other child. Going to Switzerland with your newly discovered sister might actually be good bonding time for them.
@@AnalyticalVouyer because they forcefully pushed her into a breaking point where she had to take action to discipline them, otherwise they would have made her life a living hell. Like if someone is making your life difficult obviously you want that out of your way, even if they're kids.
I honestly disagree completely. She got what she deserved.
In my opinion Meredith is still a classist jerk - that bell she rang for Chessy was reason enough to not like her - it seems like Chessy was a close family friend in addition to a housekeeper - suddenly ringing a bell for her to come is a valid reason for Chessy to be like, “yeah no, I quit!”
Chessy judged her from day one and Meredith probably knew what she spreads about her, so naturally you wanna shame that person and why not? Bell for servants ain't a bad thing
I'm not a fan of re-evaluating female antagonists from childhood movies to be victims not matter what they do. Sharpay is NOT a victim, she bullied Kelsi from the beginning, sabotaged in every movie- even when it wasn't necessary- and stalked and harassed Troy throughout the 2nd film; which the film and audience blame Troy for, even though he was just trying to keep his job. She has sympthetic qualities, but that means she an antagonist rather than a villian.
Let women be the antagonists ffs. You can still enjoy them with infantilising them.
100% on Sharpay. I've loved her since I was a kid but part of why she's iconic is because she's a great antagonist who was allowed to learn a lesson (and promptly forget it at the end of each movie lol). The only times she had reasons to be upset was 1) when Troy and Gabriella eventually got the leads in the musical having no experience in theater while she and Ryan had dedicated their lives to it (which doesn't excuse her actions at all cause nothing was even announced until the very end, and the fact she felt so entitled to the role proved she needed a reality check of some kind), and 2) in the third movie during the musical when all of her classmates essentially ruined her chances at Julliard and embarrassed her in the front of everyone despite not really doing anything to deserve it. Like yeah she constantly wanted a solo show and Gabriella's role, but her leaving for Stanford was HER choice and had nothing to do with Sharpay.
Despite those 2 instances, she still tried to steal someone's boyfriend while he was happily in a relationship and treats everyone around her horribly, including her own brother. Characters like Sharpay, Meridith, and Debbie from Adams Family values love being bad people, and just cause they have good fashion and iconic lines doesn't take away from that
Hear hear! I tell ya, pretty soon people will start justifying the Sanderson sisters murdering children
YESS THIS i love sharpay and her style and some of her actions in the trilogy but she didn't get a full redemption arc until her spin off movie. up until then she was always kind of rude and assumed the worst of people, thinking she had the drama department, kelsis songs, and troy all to herself and whoever tried to take that from her was someone to be brought down
This is how I felt about the Maleficent remake. She was an amazing and fun villain, just let her be evil please!
Totally agree, part of the reason why she is so entertaining is because she is so selfish and there is no reason to re-write the story that she is the victim. Especially when she was constantly redeemed by the end of the movies and was even able to be the hero in her solo movie.
The parents in this movie definitely do not come out smelling like roses on a rewatch as an adult!
Tbh the premise, that you’d split identical twins up, is absurd and no judge would allow it. You kind of have to pretend that that was ever possible to watch the film.
The director was a groomer.
I always cringed when mother explained their parting ways by just saying smth like "We were so young so I left". Dafuq?! That's all you can bring to the table? and the parents had zero chemistry whatsoever, they kinda seemed like two perfect strangers on a business meeting (see the scene in the restaurant, for example).
@@DSQueenie so what would u have done with two infants? Gave them both to the mom and the dad rarely sees them? You do know she lives in London and he lived in California. Which is almost 6,000 miles away across an ocean. They made the right decisions of splitting them up. The only thing they should have done was kept in contact and let the girls at least interact with each other like twice a year.
No judge wouldn’t allow what? The court doesn’t get involved in personal agreements. If Nick and Liz agreed on that, there is nothing a judge can say. Now if they went to court and fought for custody, that’s a different story.
@@darthtepes she left because they were young and always fighting. Do you remember she threw a hair dryer at him? You do realize they got married spontaneously and were only together for a year.
I'm sorry but no. Meredith is not misunderstood, what she does is not okay, trying to separate a man from his child is a shitty thing to do. And this was defiantly the plan from the beginning because I wouldn't be planning ship a kid off to boarding school after one small hiccup at the pool. Maybe its just me being personal because I have known people who have potential stepparents try to actively separate them from their parents and pull some bullshit ultimatums. Plus, I know Meredith didn't hit the twins in this version, but if she had been at arms reach of them she would have and that is never cool.
Can someone make an essay about our society's recent obsession with rehabilitating every unlikable female character ever? If we're going to talk about equality of the sexes, why can't women just be unlikable bi*ches? That's also on a spectrum of what women are.
Elizabeth shows that the movie isn't vilifying ambition and career women. This is a story of two children wanting their parents together. That's the story this movie is telling and in which Meredith is the character. As such, she is a good character and is remembered by people because of it (and a great performance).
No story can be everything all at once. No character either.
Thank you so much. not every female character has to be good. Meredith is a good character with amazing fashion sense but not a good person. She tried to ship Hallie off to a boarding school since everyone is forgetting that
Yes thank you not all female characters are hated because of patriarchy . Blaming patriarchy and men for everything imo is taking away agency and accountability of her actions from a women .
Yesss!!! Why is everyone getting the women free pass to be awful bitches??
@@kaushikidhupar2954 exactly! Why can't we women just admit that we are capable of cruelty, especially to each other? I can understand the desire to correct certain injustices, but we are waaaay past that point and are now doing a disservice to ourselves, no patriarchy required.
I have to agree with this. To take something out of one box to put it into another is basically just reorganization. The bigger issue is the CEO going after his employee. What about that? What if Meredith declined his offers, would her job be at risk? There are more angles to look at this with. Plus those kids might need some more focused parenting if this is how they are acting out. I think this story is full of flawed characters, which is like real life, and probably why we like it. It doesn’t mean we readjust the narratives for this and other movie’s characters.
You can criticize the tropes without justifying her actions. I think the video would make so much more sence that way.
She's an objectivey unkind and greedy person, and a snob.
LITERALLY THIS!!!!
Yup
omggg you said this so much more concisely than i did lolol
HUH?!? Meredith WAS a bad person. She was never interested in the twins. She only pretended to care about them to get them to go quietly. She LITERALLY planned to send them away BEFORE she met them. (albeit, she was only aware of one child, still bad). She was also ONLY dating Nick because he was rich. She admitted that to her father... in the movie. Why date a man with kids... if you hate kids? Also, the twins were, idk, children?? They acted like children. Meredith was an adult who acted like a child. She was classist, evil and manipulative... but she was the victim? no. And that's ok. She dressed well and had great one liners but she was in fact the villain of this film.
Other people sucked too, but that in no way makes her worthy of a defense.
i agree she acted like a child. like i understand the twins were mean to her too but she should be more mature and recognize she doesn’t have to retaliate every time they make a jab…like getting a step parent is hard it’s weird to expect them to love you straight away. dunno why she always stooped to their level like they were CHILDREN
No, actually, you are confusing the Olsen twins' movie Clarice, who says she's all for shipping (who she thinks is) Elise, to boarding school when she's calm and says it to her dad. Meredith, on the other hand, says the boarding school threat when the twins tried to drown her in the lake, which, you know, would have anyone just write those little assholes off because that crossed a line.
Clarice is the manipulative would be step mom, Meredith isn't really pretending or gaslighting anyone as it's obvious that she's tolerating the twins' for Nick's sake after nth time they called her a gold-digger (which, again, many a prospective SO to a single parent usually takes said parent aside and say "I love you, but your kids are intolerable, this is not going to work out" or "I love you, please do something about your child's behavior, because this is not acceptable" if they REALLY like the parent). Again, Meredith says the boarding school in a fit of anger after the kids crossed the line. Clarice is the one coldly calculating to send Elise to boarding school, possibly to Tibet, while completely cool headed.
@@irondragonmaiden babe, I've never seen it takes two. So no, I'm not confusing them. Also there is a scene in this video where Meredith gets called ice woman.... That's before the twins did anything to her. Meredith is a bad person. Y'all are girl bossing tf out of her
@@brieelle09 I’m also so perplexed that the video and commenters keep referring to the lake scene as attempted drowning lmao the air mattress was clearly floating just fine and I’d say it’s a safe assumption that Meredith could swim - murder was certainly not at the top of twins’ minds
@@gibuttersnaps2538 also, they were children lol they behaved like children. I'm concerned with how people are twisting this. 😂
Can't a female villain just be a villain? Excusing her actions just because she's a woman isn't doing anything for feminism
Agreed.
ModernGurlz already said this before you did. It's in her Mulan video.
Exactly my thoughts
@@AlphabetCookie Too bad she forgot to say that in this video 🤔
Exactly!
A lot of people are forgetting that she was planning to ship 'Hallie' to a boarding school before she had done anything to her. Plus, she basically admitted she was marrying him only for his money
And what’s wrong with that men only date women for their looks everyone knows in society that you only get treated nicely when you look good so why not get some money out of it
actually she only says the “boarding school in timbuktu” line *after* annie tries to piss her off by implying that she’s just “one in a long line of other women” (when nick leaves them at the pool). that’s why meredith calls her a two-faced brat because she knew she was trying to get a rise out of her
@@ModernGurlz Yea, but his point about mainly marrying him for his money make sense, in the movie she tells her dad, “There’s 5 million reasons to love him” or something like that, not to mention how she treats Jesse in the beginning.
Sorry what she said was, “He’s everything you wanted for your little girl, plus millions more”.
Why wouldn’t she marry him for his money? What else does he have to offer? He seems nice but that’s basic human good behavior. He isn’t a good partner and he isn’t a good dad if he brought a new person into his child’s home without warning. She’s obviously young and very elegant and beautiful (trophy wife) so if she is being chosen for such shallow reasons (he obviously didn’t love her that much if a bunch of pranks broke his engagement that quickly) why can’t she be shallow right back?
I really never saw Meredith ever try to be genuinely kind to the girls like she planned on shipping them off to boarding school before they even started scheming. I don’t like kids either, but that doesn’t mean its justified to marry a father with plans on separating him from his child. Like you can get a little snappy when they give you attitude but don’t take it that far. Also how she treated Chessy like. Y’all trynna tell me Meredith was actually a girl boss and to praise the female manipulator. Not justifying the kids’ behavior but its a bit of a reach.
Yes!!!
Plus they're literally *kids*, all children are 'problematic' in some ways. We all went to middle school, some of those kids were worse than adults I've met in recent years...
@@katfujioka212 Not just kids, but kids going through a giant emotional upheaval. It's not cute to be awful to children just because they don't match your trophy wife goals. And it's not feminist to aspire to be chosen by a wealthy older man, even if you aspire in a confident and driven way.
I'm sorry but the part where she said the twins were "old enough to know better" I had to laugh . I wld agree if they were teens but not these 12 yr olds lmao. I can even argue the girls being able to be mischievous in a way a male character wld be able to (Bart comes to mind) is cool for breaking gender standards of behavior.
Hey what is “girl blogging?” Never heard that term before!
So it’s okay to immediately send off your fiancé’s child to boarding school without good reason? It’s okay to deny charitable actions on Nick’s behalf without him knowing? It’s okay to treat a much loved member of the family, Chessy, like a slave with a bell? She is an adult and should’ve been the bigger person in this whole situation. She should’ve redirected her anger and frustration to Nick for not telling her the truth from the beginning.
She isn’t wrong for knowing what she wants and getting the guy with the money. Have at it but when your already talking about shipping children off, purposefully antagonizing them without trying to understand them, and treating Chessy like shit, yeah you don’t deserve to be redeemed.
Boarding schools are schools, you send your kids to them for a superior education than your local area (as well as social and cultural exposure). Why would she be nice to Chessy when she was mean to her, including bad mouthing her to her employer’s impressionable kid? She’s a trophy wife, the whole point of them is to look good and be too young to demand an equal partnership, of course she isn’t going to fight with Nick about it. And Nick shipped his kid off first to camp so he could canoodle with his much younger employee, to the point the kid doesn’t even know she exists before learning she’s moved in and they’re engaged, so why should she think it would be any different to do it again?
@@vysharra First of all, Meredith poses Boarding school as a punishment for Hallie not as a means of superior learning. Hallie and Nick are extremely close, why would either of them agree to this? She wants Hallie out of the way as soon as she realizes that they won’t be getting along.
Second, we have no way of knowing that camp was exclusively Nick or Hallie’s idea. Nick even says that sending her away was a mistake because he missed her so much. Hallie like camping, hence their yearly camping trip before school. She most likely wanted to go to camp to try something new and found her twin. Or Nick thought it was better to find girls like Hallie herself which she did, besides Annie. Why would he send her off to “canoodle” Meredith when he enjoys Hallie’s presence so much?
Third, We don’t know if Meredith knows if Chessy doesn’t like her, as a matter of fact, it’s about respect. Chessy doesn’t like Meredith because she doesn’t like how quickly Meredith and Nick have gotten together without telling Hallie first. She has assumptions about her but Meredith doesn’t know Chessy has bad mouthed her to Hallie before getting the bell. The bell is the ultimate sign of disrespect because she is treating Chessy like a servant/slave to be called despite the fact that Chessy has been there since Hallie’s birth. Chessy has assumptions because it’s clear that Meredith doesn’t see Chessy as anything more than a cook.
Fourth, we don’t know how long Meredith has been employed by Nick. We don’t know who came onto whom. And we don’t know whether Meredith truly thinks sending Hallie off to camp is normal. ACTUALLY, Meredith knows how much Nick loves Hallie and loves having her around. She knows their relationship and still wants to send her off for longer periods of time so she doesn’t interfere with her marriage with Nick.
Fifth, did Nick ever say he wanted a trophy wife? Did Nick ever ask her to drop everything in her career to watch over his home? We only know that Nick loved Meredith enough to want to marry her and didn’t know her ulterior motives. Which she states when Meredith greets her parents at the hotel.
@@vysharra Not to mention that Nick already behaved like on of the kids doesn't exist
Maybe she over reacted but try to remember the twins quite literally tried to drown her
@@matematicarka That doesn’t make what Meredith did better
yall keep saying Meredith tried to be nice to the twins did yall even watch the movie??? Shes a straight up gold digger who literally planned to ship hallie away as soon as she married nick
she was being fake the whole time not one part of that was her being nice just to be nice she had a clear motive that she said on the golf cart with her assistant or whoever that was
I’m starting to wonder if they’re defending her just because she’s pretty 💀
And the way she treated chessy 🙄
@@NoName-dx1no fr cuz ive been watching this movie since i was a baby and meredith has never struck me as someone who needed defending even as a child
Yes!!!
Dad should be criticized too though. In what world did he think that was an appropriate spouse to play his kid's new mom? He barely took time to know her & couldn't possibly believed she was going to fit in, unless he didn't care & guess what? He didn't. He wanted a hot young wife.
She's a great villain, just let her be that, watching her suffer is incredibly entertaining.
@Lily Pond
She was a mean and selfish person but the actress playing her was beautiful and fantastic for the role!
Yeah your comment not biased at all 😂
It's ok to say that the parents are the villains because they really are. Their divorce settlement of dividing the twins and living in separate countries never to see each other again has to be the most abusive divorce agree I've every heard of.
But that doesn't make the fiancé any less of a bad person herself. Other than Chessy, all of the adults failed the kids in the movie. Non of them cared that those kids were dealing with trauma. They just found out that the parent they thought were dead was alive and living with a twin in another country and was ok with never seeing them again. Try to process that at their age? Meredith didn't try to understand that. She didn't try to help them. She instead got mad that they were pranking her and gave their father an ultimatum to choose between her and them. How is that not villainy?
And why would she be ok with giving him that ultimatum? If he would have chosen her how would she ever be secure enough to have a child by him? I sure wouldn't. I'd feel like he could possibly do the same thing to my child if we didn't work out. Or even to me if someone else came along.
I can understand having some sympathy for her but to try to present her as a good person is beyond questionable. It feels like pandering or like you are asking us to put blinders on and just see her as a woman, while you in turn are tearing down other women in the process i.e.Chessy and the twins. It's a very weird take for sure.
Nick is old and neglectful of his kids, why would she ever think about having kids with him?
And Chessy accusing Meredith of being a gold digger, redirecting the twin’s anger at being ignored by her father to the fiancée, was wrong too. Only the dad agreed to lie to his kid, got engaged to a woman he hadn’t even introduced to said kid, moved her in while the kid was sent away to camp, and made the woman a “step mother” instead of just his new wife. He sent the kid away to camp and ignored her when she got back, why wouldn’t Meredith believe that a rich boarding school is a good option for a kid who is being neglected by their ‘busy’ dad?
@@vysharra no Nick is neglectful of one child, not both. He had a good relationship with the child he kept. There wasn't anything wrong with sending his daughter to camp.
Regardless of what Meredith thought of Nick's parenting it wasn't her place to decide that boarding school was the place for the twins. If it was that serious she should have reconsidered marrying him. But she wouldn't do that because the money was too good.
And Chessy did redirect the anger toward the fiance. She gave her opinion about Meredith. Now an argument can be made that she shouldn't have shared that opinion with a child and I can agree with that. But her opinion also turned out to be fact.
Uh, Meredith didn't even know about the weird twin arrangement (which, frankly, was a red flag and reason number 36 not to marry Nick, this time that isn't instigated by one of the twins) until after Annie (and Hallie by proxy) have been all but calling her a whore to her face and that passive-aggressive crap they were pulling.
By the time the weird twin thing was revealed to her, the twins had already poisoned the well just fine. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Meredith was staying engaged to Nick out of inertia, because half of the kids' crap would've been grounds for me to tell a SO to either get their kid to behave like a halfway decent human being or goodbye. And that was before the camping trip from hell.
As for her ultimatum... dude, that was an emotional response after the twins have been mistreating her nonstop and then culminated in them trying to drown her. I'd be more worried about her state of mind if she didn't snap. To that end, sorry not sorry, but the original fiancee had the correct reaction: slap them. If the father won't discipline them after that, fine, then someone else was going to pay. Hell, I would be all for grabbing them by the hair, frog marching them to their father, and have all three of them explain, very slowly, how exactly this bullshit was in any way, shape, or form OK. And no, young age IS NOT a proper excuse.
Thing of it is, children in this niche of children's film are horrible shitheels who all but get away with murder so long as their target is "acceptable to target"
@@irondragonmaiden we are talking about children here though. While she had every right to talk to Nick about being called all but a whore the actual harassment didn’t start until the camping trip. The closest they got was sabotaging the Stanford Hotel day and Nick did tell them off for that and Elizabeth did for that matter.
The fact is as a 26 year old Meredith’s behaviour has to be held to a higher standard than an 11 year old and Meredith shouldn’t respond in kind.
@@irondragonmaiden I actually agree that kids in these genre of films get to be shitheads without any discipline. 100% correct. I do think in this case they definitely had major trauma going on. There's no way they couldn't have.
The reason she didn't leave was because she wanted the money. Meredith wasn't interested in some cozy family life that included Nick and his daughter. That was never in the cards from her viewpoint. And it definitely wasn't in the cards once she found out there were two of them. The pranking and nasty behavior wasn't the turning point for her. She was already in the mind frame. Think about what she told her father "He's everything you want for your little girl plus millions more."
Whether we like it or not she was written to be a villain. That's obvious by comparing the book to the movie. She wasn't like that in the book at all. The book version could be a woman that you could be sympathetic too. Meredith was a witch and a gold digger.
I gotta say- this is one of those “they are actually a villain though”She really was rude and mean to the girls and everyone around her. Any time she’s nice to people it’s only to get what she wants- confirmed in her immediate 180s when the the girls see through her. IF she was actually trying to connect with the girls, she wouldn’t have done that. Brushing off her being the adult and writing her actions as “petty” is nuts. As the adult it was her responsibility to be the bigger person. I’ve always had issue with the logic of “if wouldn’t be bad if a man did it so women should be able to do it.” it’s an issue if anybody were to do the things that Meredith does. The goal should be for men who do the things that are shown in the movie to take on the more “feminine“ traits of kindness compassion fairness and respect. Meredith is a objectively rude unkind person, regardless of gender. Is what the girls due to her at the end the gracious option? No. But was it unfair?? No.
I see many of adults up in this movie to have flaws, especially the two biological parents who did the extreme stupidity of splitting up kids and pretending like one another never existed, like who tf does that? Then we have the father during a good portion of the film seeing kids do all of these pranks, but him as the adult isn't doing anything about it even though he sees this woman just isn't tf amused and they went as far as to put her in the middle of the lake when I don't think they knew if she could swim or not, that is in of itself is dangerous, at that point the father shoulda been "You know what yall are done, we are going home and you two can have the rest of the stay in your rooms with crap to do!". Meredith had own flaws as why would she be with a man with kids when she doesn't like kids all that much, now she doesn't have to stand there and let a little kid be rude to her, but a lot of the anger should have been directed towards the father when she felt so upset about it because HE is the father, he is the one she is marrying, on top of that she is 26 and this man is how old? Like 15-20 years older? Sir she could be your daughter depending on the age gap, this lady is.old enough to be your daughter big sister cause ya kids are only 11! Then we got Lottie whose bitter that he didn't marry his first girlfriend, the kids' mom and is walking around just mad about it from what I remember, lady if you care that much why didn't you go and contact her yourself, or try to find her all those years ago? Coulda also had those sisters been known about each other in the process, I still can't understand why two people thought it was good to split the kids up when they split as if they were splitting upassets, children aren't cars they are human beings.,
This! Yes! You could gender flip all the parts in the movie, you could make both parents mothers, both fathers, it wouldn't matter. Her behavior is unacceptable, as is that of the parents. My mom likes to say in the 70s she thought it was really strange that the "feminist" magazines seemed to want women to be more like men, she always thought men should be more like women. There has been this running theme of lowering the moral bar for women, and I get it, women shouldn't be more demonized than men for the same faults, we're all human. Maybe the bar should be raised to woman height for men instead.
sexual harassment is sexual harassment, no matter how bad the victim is.
I totally agree and that’s why I understand the modern trend of sympathizing with unlikeable female characters like Sharpay or Regina George, but at their core, they’re all still bad people. These flawed women are objectively awful and cruel towards everyone around them, and while to a certain extent you can understand where they’re coming from, their backgrounds and contextualizations only explain, not excuse, their behaviors.
And to treat these characters as “yes girlboss slay 💅” martyrs is kinda weird because these very characters glorify harmful ideas of vanity, cruelty, and power. Women have been and still are unfairly called vain and catty, but the point isn’t to celebrate these characteristics, it’s to disgender them. These traits are bad in both men and women. It’s possible to condemn both toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. And even aside from that, do we really want to celebrate women like Regina George, Meredith, or Sharpay? Women who actively tear other women down for their own personal gain?
Also, let’s not pretend that if these characters weren’t rich, white, and conventionally attractive, we would see the same sympathy.
@@ChildOfDarkDefiance the first scene where Meredith was in , Annie was rude to her, while yea she s a kid but it's not like Meridith was evil or anything, those kids were giving her grief for no reason.
While I feel Meredith was heavily stereotyped, I do find it off putting as an adult how she quickly moved to being hostile towards the twins rather than realizing that her presence as a potiential stepparent would be something most kids would be initially hostile to.
I much prefer the older Hayley Mills version of Meredith who portrays her as not only being able to get along with her Fiance's Ex, but shows her break up as personality differences between her and the Twins Dad being put under pressure. This not only makes her more believable as being a full grown adult as she let's the twins parents know of growing hostilities rather than letting it fester and having the movie treat it more of an evil aside.
But in either version, the fact that she makes threats of "things are going to be different around here" and "sending them off the boarding school" is showing she is willing to overstep into altering the lives of children that aren't even hers when she is barely engaged to their Father. She even implies that she knows what is better for them than their own parents which seems like a HUGE overstep for kids she only just met. As the other woman and a career woman I think she was shorted, but she can't be a child hater while also overstepping into an authority role as a parent. The fact that she was willing to try to manipulate the father into doing things that would strain and even put him at odds with the daughter he raised on his own and the one he only just recently reunited with after years still keeps her as a realistically bad stepparent to me.
I'm sorry but I can't side with anyone who beefs with literal children
I’m so over this trend of people trying to make white women in movies the victim when clearly they were a villain or villain like. She was not a victim. I understand thinking her fashion is iconic (cus it is) but that’s not a reason to try to defend her awful behavior. Y’all need to let villains be villains.
fr. some of these im like "understandable", this one I dont feel the same way
no
did you even watch the video
@@sweetdaydreamer8868 to listen to another opinion. If you wanna watch this video because you like echo chambers, sure, go ahead. But this ain't it.
right? some of it i agree but in this case? she wasnt a good person; and calling 11 yo problematic is a little bit of a reach (they did wrong stuff but theyre kids lol)
You tore down the two 11-year old twins more than you did the grown father and grown mother. Makes sense.
no literally. this video bothered me so much and was definitely not it 🥴
I don’t know. In one hand at first she tried to be nice to Hallie, I give her that. But in the other hand she was after Nick’s money, she said that herself.
I don’t think she was as innocent as you put it, but she probably didn’t deserved what she got
I actually agree with this because now that I think of it I wonder I she sat them down and talked to them and HAVE THE FATHER talk about it with them.
But what was Nick after? I don't think it was true love. He wanted a hot, young wife to get him through a midlife crisis.
@@mothturtle7897 yes, the relationship is a troupe for a reason, these relationships work in real like because yes she want him partly because of money and he wants her partly because she young and beautiful
@@karinalumen9722 after this video I realized that everyone needs therapy I also think the main reason the kids tried to get their parents together was because they just met each other and wanted to continue to stay . I feel like everyone has a reason they just do it in a bad way
@@mothturtle7897 Yeah, you’re right. I guess they deserve each other
Can you really blame the twins for being messed up when their parents decided in their divorce to split them up and just take one twin each? Like that is seriously terrible parenting
Exactly, and when they _switch_ they didn't recognise the imposter, I mean you would DEFINITELY recognise your own kid unless you're an absentee parent and the kids are raised by nannies
I never felt anyway about her in particular as far as I can remember. That lizard/gecko scene will always make me laugh though shamelessly. 😂
I know right that scene hilarious lol 😂
I don't get what's with some people and sympathising with gold diggers. She treated Chessy horribly, married the dad only for his money and that was her biggest mistake. Why would you marry a father if you don't like kids?
But her fashion was pretty so I will give her something.
He told her about the children late into the relationship, they were about to get married. Its not sympathizing. Why is he marring her? If she the gold digger then hes the “young tail” for him. Everyone is trash in this movie
@@karinalumen9722 but even though she was told late, she did not act like an adult at all and immaturely responded to their pranks. If she was such a 'girlboss' she should have left Nick right there and then. These 11 yr old twins just learnt about their other parents existence and felt meredith threatened the relationship yet felt no need to show them she really wasn't try to destroy their lives and she was hella rude.
But you are right on the adults except Chessy for being horrible parental figures.
I honestly have no issue with her being a gold digger per se. The thing is you can marry someone for their money and still be decent to their staff and children. Meredith clearly was not someone who was like that.
@@karinalumen9722 Yea but Meredith was still an EVIL gold digger 🤦🏻♀️
No way y’all defending this blonde white woman like this…
Right? I'm baffled by this take.
Agreed, she's a fuckin elitist, just look how she treated Chessy, but i guess if you are a blonde white girl it's "empowering"
Ever since people started defending Sharpay I’m not even surprised anymore. Let villains be villains.
What does RACE have to do with any of this ?
Are not white women ever " defend-able" at all ? COZ OF THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN ?
@@wilsh it’s like they want the nice girls to be the real villains. It’s not gonna happen.
Some of y’all saying that the twins tried to murder her clearly have forgotten that a movie called Home Alone exists. It’s a kids movie. Exaggerated pranks are literally the staple of every kids movie from that decade.
Let villains from kids movies be villains. Stop trying to victimise them. Next you’re gonna try and redeem Cruella from…. Oh wait.
I agreee. But Cruella just tells us her origins, it's not ignoring the things she will later do in life. Plus the movie calls her out when Cruella does something bad (or a straight up crime).
Summin' up, she's still a villain. Cruella suffered. But she's a bitch too.
@@therandom1283 That was my point though. The fact that they created a backstory where she suffered and retconned a lot of things. Cruella was a terrifying and entertaining villain from a kids movie. Why not leave it at that? Why not create stories for other original female characters who have loose morals but are ultimately victims who come out victorious?
Like so many others have pointed out in this thread, let villains be villains. It’s okay to have female villains and like them. No need for redemption just because of their gender.
@@mythilihariharan676 I prefer to see the movie as a side story. Cruella will ALWAYS be a villain, i don't disagrees with that fact.
What’s next Trunchebul from Matilda?
@@mythilihariharan676 I don’t see the issue with the backstory bit. I’m not gonna lie, I was disappointed they retconned the skinning puppies thing, but otherwise there’s nothing wrong with giving her a backstory, as the movie didn’t portray it as any sort of justification for how she acted.
I'm sorry no. She was a grown ass women and they were children. There was no need to be hostile toward the child and then declare she'd send her off to boarding school. And how she treated Chessy wasn't ok either. We can like an unlikeable female villain but there's no need to force redeam or paint every one of them as misunderstood. We can like unlikable characters.
The kids shouldn't have tried to fucking drown her tho??
There was a lot to process with this take, but the funniest bit had to be the thought of the twins attempting to murder Meredith by putting her mattress on the lake 💀 it’s a big ass floatie and she likely knew how to swim, I think their goal was the less-innocuous extreme annoyance/frustration/anger to get her to leave Nick…
To this I would say what I normally say to arguments like these - just because the portrayal of her character and demonisation of certain character traits is strongly rooted in sexist ideals, that doesn't make the character herself a better person. While it raises questions from an analytical or authorial perspective, it doesn't change the events of the story. And the story did prove her to be a cruel person who cared about money and despised the children - from the start she basically wanted to cut her off from her father to make her life more convenient. That's an awful thing to do no matter how much misogyny was involved in shaping her character this way.
This is exactly what I wanted to say, but you put it much better than I could!
Best comment
she is not a morally grey character, she doesn't have any type of reedemable qualities neither a good reason to back her up on her evilness. she is just a villain and thats okay, she doesn't need a defense. i agree the parents should be called out on their behavior, but that doesn't make meredith less of a villain. the kids didn't have to know better, they are KIDS, they tend to get even more petty as they are closer to the teen age. meredith is the adult, she is not in the place of backfire a children or even try to separate a kid from their parents, and i think this is what makes her the villain.
yes, i think she is actually a great character to study how those villain tropes worked back in the 90s and how some of them are rooted on sexism, but again, that doesn't make her any less of a villain, neither a morally grey character. she is bad and she is a woman, thats fine.
andy’s friends and boyfriend are annoying in dwp, but nothing can convince me that the “nate was the true villain” narrative wasn’t planted to promote girlboss feminism and hustle culture, the true villain was the abusive boss, it’s okay to admit that
Honestly, the "real villain" in The Devil Wears Prada is capitalism
Usually a fan of your analyses, but this video really missed the mark. Sure, some of Meredith's portrayal is problematic and sexist. But she is still a character who acts cruelly and dismissively to those around her, especially those she considers "beneath" her. Sexist aspects of her character and portrayal don't cancel that out or make it okay. And when children act out against an adult, it is NOT fair for the adult to respond in kind. Meredith didn't have to like the way Annie and Hallie treated her, but as the adult in the situation, she should have done better than sink to their level; that kind of behavior is toxic and abusive.
But I thought she only wanted the father for his money? And I’m pretty sure she said that outright. If I was a child and heard that I definitely would not have treated that person kindly. 🤷🏽♀️
she never said she wanted to marry him only for his money! she tells annie “i adore your father, he’s exactly the type of man i planned on marrying” and she tells her parents “now be nice daddy, he’s everything you ever wanted for your little girl plus millions more”. so his money *helps* but it was never about JUST that. and as i say in the video, what’s wrong with a woman wanting financial security?
I just think that if this situation was to play out irl, this would be VERY VERY different.
Why is it okay for a man to marry a woman half his age but not okay for her to marry him for his money?!
Don't get me wrong, I see this as awful both ways. I think you're setting yourself up for failure and a lot of drama if you choose that. But people still have the right to choose what they want.
Just pointing out the double standard.
I think irl she'd be head over heels in love with him, he's handsome, successful, charming... And yes he happens to have money which is a perk.
But she'd probably see him for all the things he is and not just a wallet. On the other hand, she's beautiful, sophisticated, intelligent, and successful in her own right. They're ironically not poorly matched except for the age thing. And he's not exactly in his fifties.
He will have separated from his first wife for ACTUAL SERIOUS reasons, it just didn't work out. They also ironically seem both happy in the movie and living their lives to the fullest.
I get why a child would want their parents to be together, truly. But sometimes a relationship can be so difficult to be in that one may end up not being there for their children at all because of all the emotional mess they have to deal with as part of the relationship.
I really am genuinely scared AF to ever get married and have children partly due to these reasons. You could really end up hurting yourself and hurting the people you love eventually because the relationship doesn't work out.
Hmm
@@societycrumbles financial security can definitely be a factor but not the soul reason you should marry someone
@Moderngurlz I guess we can just agree to disagree. I do feel it was wrong of the dad to hide that he has twins but he still told her he had a child. Now if you barely like the first one why would you still stay with him? Also I guess I’m more of a romantic when it comes to stuff like marriage because I just don’t think that money should be the basis of a relationship. I also just don’t think Meredith is a victim. 🤷🏽♀️ But I do respect t your opinion and this brought up a good conversation to have.
Well, this is disappointing, this is a really weak analysis of a grown woman being hostile to literal children, she was not interested in Nick at all, she was interested in his money, she treated Chessy in a clasist way, the fact that she is a woman does not redeem her of absolutely anything as it implies she deserves a special consideration due to being a woman, questioning misogyny and mistreat of female characters by the media and giving card blanche to the negative acts they portray are completely different things, being quite honest most adults in film are flawed, of course they're not meant to be perfect, and they might feel as incomplete people at times, but I would say that is mainly because it's Nancy Meyers directorial debut, flawed as it is, I think it's worth mentioning that this is a story portrayed through the female gaze, with all the flaws that it has at its time it was part of something groundbreakingish
I'm sorry but she, is not a victim at all. She is a really mean person.
Just to say, there’s no reason to treat a child badly in retribution. Kids can be jerks but they’re KIDS and don’t have the perspective to understand how the world works yet. It is always the responsibility of the adult to explain with consideration and kindness and not stoop to their level. They behaved badly but kids aren’t deserving of cruelty ever!!!!!!!!!!!
Yea idk why they were comparing an 11 year old’s behaviour to a 26 year old’s and acting as if they’re on the same level of maturity
I do think you should care about being liked by the children of the man you intend to marry and while I do think those children did torment her a bit it's still her job as an adult to have a mature response to that.
She was also classist, selfish and just generally nasty like why would she get a bell for Chessy to be at her beck and call as if she were a dog? Yes, I do think a lot of morally grey female characters have been dragged through the dirt for being women I just think that sometimes a bad woman is just a bad woman. Like, we do nawt have to make a defense for her.
Maybe if he would have told her about them early into the relationship, he spring them on her
@@karinalumen9722 and then not only did she choose to stay in that relationship with him while maintaining her dislike for kids, she was also antagonistic toward them and tried to separate them from their father.
seriously, her beef should've been with nick not two 5th graders.
@@karinalumen9722 Meredith knew about Halle.
@@sugarpearl9781 Her job would've required research into Nick Parker. While she knew about Hallie before meeting Nick, I'm impressed that Nick's marriage to famous fashion designer Elizabeth James wasn't discovered.
This is so off the mark. So now women canot be villains. There's always a reason why a woman do evli shit in a story, that makes her a victim: Cruella, Sharpay, Meredith. With this kind of analysis we are esentially taking agency of female antagonists. We are saying that all women are good and nice but is the enviroment who make them do bad things so tey are actually victims. That's messed up imo.
So messed up, I agree
Right if we keep justifying these type of characters what example does that set for the younger girls?
While i appreciate and agree with your take on Meredith, i don't know if I would label what the twins are doing to her as "gaslighting". They're young kids afterall, and defo on the bratty side; also the film itself has a cartoonish tone where it's meant to not be taken seriously, so i would definitely give their behavior and the weird custody situation, a pass.
Edit: I admit i don't remember the film properly so I'd forgotten the whole Chessy- Meredith dynamic. Upon reading the comments it resurfaced back into memory. Meredith can be criticized on her elitist and classist behavior, but what ModernGurl's main point here is that the film is using now aged tropes to villify her like the child-hating, other woman, tropes. And i think that point still stands.
What makes her a villain isn't her femininity or independence, but her.. you know - actual villainous character traits
I know they're literally kids, they probably don't even know what gaslighting is. Kids can be pieces of shit, but why act like a child yourself and stoop to that level as a grown adult???
Yes! They literally put the twins bed on a cabin... that's impossible to do in real life. It was all cartoonish.
Just cause you don't know what gaslighting is, doesn't mean you can't do it.
@@MsLilly200 Actually, it does - you can't really intentionally make someone question their sanity if you don't know you're doing it. Also, the twins are 11 and Meredith is a grown woman, so I really severely doubt they could effectively gaslight her even if they knew how
@@undercovercat8449 yeah, they are literally only 11 years old. maybe if they were older teenagers, they would know better but they aren't even teenagers yet.
I always felt like Chessy had told Annie all those things about Meredith at the beginning because she had a sixth sense that Meredith had drastic plans for their household before anybody caught wind of them, namely her plan to ship Hallie off. I don’t think Chessy knew that was exactly the plan, but she had the sense that there were ulterior motives given how Chessy had been an established part of the family and had even looked after Nick and Hallie all this time almost like a parent. It probably grated her even more when Meredith started acting like she knows Nick best, which isn’t wrong for a couple to know each other well, but there’s hints that she is trying to shape his interests to match her expectations more through subtle manipulation, and Chessy notices that.
Because of this, I don’t feel that Chessy was just hating on Meredith for no reason. If anything, she comes off as more like a knowing mom with experience at scoping people who are good at manipulating others to get what they want, and she knows that others, especially kind people, might fall for that.
There’s also hints that even if Annie had tried being nice to Meredith, it wasn’t going to be enough to convince her to abort the boarding school plans, and that these plans had been put in place prior to her returning from summer camp. Meredith used subtle language and hints that she was trying to figure out how much pushback Annie was going to give her from the start with questions like, if she was mad about using her horse, etc, and I’ve always felt like she was trying to start finding reasons to support her boarding school idea.
This might also be unintended, but in these moments, Meredith even comes off as though she feels like she has to compete with Hallie for her title’s as her father’s daughter more than just a spouse who could easily coexist with a child. Her sending Hallie off to boarding school could just be her asserting dominance and keeping Hallie from interrupting their married life, but also it sometimes comes off like she wants almost like privileged child life that Hallie had for herself, and thus why she wants to boot her out. This is why I was always kind of struck by the joke that Annie makes about Nick adopting Meredith than just being a joke about their age difference.
I do agree that the film never gives the parents realistic consequences for the harm and trouble they caused with their arrangement, and I think there are some flaws in how Meredith is demonized in some ways, but I don’t think she’s completely harmless either.
While I agree with some of your points, I wouldn't go as far as to proclaim Meredith as a victim. She willingly decided to marry a father with plans to separate him from his child (not that the parents separating the kids was any less horrible)., which is a clear indicator that she never truly cared for him but for the lifestyle he could provide for her (which is dumb because she was already successful in her own right). She barely treated Cheesy like a person, so Cheesy has no obligation to be nice about her to anyone. As fun as this movie was to watch, almost every character was terrible 😂
Elizabeth was the best character
Cheesy
I always found her a pretty iconic character and the movie wouldn’t be the same without her
Agreed, Meredith was the best Villain, and she didn't deserve half of what the twins put her through.
Idk… at this point it feels like the only reason anyone can defend her is because she’s the “hot iconic and sassy character” of this movie.
We can’t excuse ANY of her childish actions… we can’t actually excuse 90% of the adults in this movie (if they weren’t childish, they were just dumb). The twins had better communication skills and at least used the braincells they were born with, god bless 🙏
Seriously, should just make a new video called “why the twins from parent trap will RUN from the house the moment they are 18🫠❤️🏃🏼♀️🏃🏼♀️”
(And another talking about the fashion in the movie cuz it’s iconic 😩🫦)
LOL exactly
She was clearly an antagonist, just chill
What always bothered me about this film was the way the parents handled their separation, treating their own children like they were interchangeable, simply because they were twins. As a twin myself, I found rather irritating the idea that a parent could discard one of their kids just because there was another one similar.
I also considered weird how no adult in those two girls' life tried to explain them that sometimes marriages simply end and there was no need to plot in order to bring back together two people who probably did not love each other anymore.
On a side note, Meredith wasn't exactly a saint. If you look at this movie with an adult eye, all the grown-up come off as terrible people.
Edit: having watched the whole ideo, I don't quite agree with the conclusions. Like I said, all the adults in this movie were horrible, but snapping back at children is not right, whether you like them or not. There's nothing wrong with not wanting children, but when you're an adult you have to remember that they're CHILDREN, they have a different way to process their feelings, and you have to be the mature one and not antagonize them. Why should we excuse Meredith because she's twenty-six (which makes her a full adult) but the twins do not get any pass for being ELEVEN?
she's a villain. period.
My two cents:
1) Exaggerated pranking is a staple in children's media (think Home Alone or Roald Dahl's books). So I don't think it should be taken too literally in this film. In the realm of children's films, death and serious consequences don't exist. Just like in comics dropping a piano on someone won't kill anyone. I feel like the way Meredith was portrayed had a lot to do with the genre of the film (basically a children's fairy tale, not a realistic family drama).
2) It's true that Miranda Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire is a careerwoman, but I don't think she really fits into the category you described. She is not a one-dimensional character at all and we also learn why she has had to put work ahead of her family (because of her husband's negligence and insecure work situation). We really get to know where she has been coming from, so I don't feel she is demonised at all. I feel like both she and Daniel grow a lot throughout the film and learn to recognise their mistakes.
Did we forget that she wanted to have them put in boarding a school as a way of having their father all to herself and wanted his money more than him. Remember one of the twins even overheard one of her convos. She’s a vilian, the dad and mom are also villians.
i have to say, though i love all of your other videos, this one feels… off. i get meredith’s antagonism and frustration later once the near drowning happens. however, she was antagonistic to annie from the beginning, with annie not given anytime to get used to the news that her father that SHE JUST MET FOR THE FIRST TIME has gotten engaged to someone she has never met before, or even hallie has met before. you can’t expect a child to be completely friendly with someone who isn’t her mother when she has built this fantasy in her head.
and your swiss boarding school comment about how it wouldn’t be that bad, as someone who goes to a boarding school, is a little misguided. it took me a very long time to adjust to not living at home at age thirteen, and i am only half an hour away. meredith wants to send two eleven year old girls to a completely different continent, or in annie’s case, a two hour plane ride, and shows no regret or remorse for what she said, which is what i feel would have redeemed her. it’s one thing to say something in the spur of the moment, but an entirely different one to fully commit to a plan like this after having mentioned it with full certainty twice.
third wave feminism, though obviously justified, has led to many female characters who were seen as villains to be seen as just women or victims, like you said. however, i don’t feel like this is helpful at all. obviously, nick is a weirdo for many reasons, not least that he doesn’t seem to have any real anger towards the twins for their treatment of meredith and split them up to begin with and the twins parents are obviously not perfect and should have been portrayed as such. however, it’s a step backward to start justifying irrational and wrong, or what you call “petty and immature”, behaviours because a character is hardworking and part of a troupe which, i agree, is not accurate or beneficial to women’s portrayals, but if that character can be firmly justified as the villain, then let them be the villain. or, at the very least, don’t excuse their flaws for their fashion sense, or completely ignore how an eleven year old should definitely not know better, especially when these eleven year olds went through something very strange and potentially traumatising, and how a 26 year old woman with a fully developed brain who intends to be some sort of mother figure to them, which she has to be okay with if she wants to marry nick, sinks down to their level and treats them in completely unacceptable ways.
also, chessie does not, in my opinion, have internalised misogyny. she is as much a part of the family as meredith, even more so, so if she has an opinion on meredith, it’s most likely a fair one, considering she’s been working for nick since the twins were born, and would therefor know nick very well. i have no doubt in my mind that if nick had met someone else who was kinder and actually willing to be a stepmother, she would have been very supportive. calling out meredith’s classism and snobbery does not equal jealousy and internalised misogyny. whether she should have shared her opinion with annie is a different question, and has to do with with their confidante relationship. also, annie posing as hallie, has been at camp. she does not know who meredith is. chessie was just telling her her opinion on someone who could potentially become a mother figure to who she thought was hallie.
and finally (wow this is way too long) i agree that there is more to meredith’s desire to marry nick than money, but it’s not helpful to speculate about the future of their relationship had the twins not meddled in a movie where no sequels were made and what we see is what we get.
Well ppl weren’t feeling the defense of Merideth. Beautiful woman and greatly acted? Sure. A victim? Nah.
Idk still seems like a villain to me. Don't marry a man just for his money and don't marry someone with kids if you hate kids🤷🏻♂️ she did it to herself
Exactly. I seriously cannot think of ONE good reason as to why she should be labeled as a victim. The movie doesn’t give her a reason to be labeled as one either. Like there’s no background story of her being neglected as a child or coming from a broke family where she wasn’t able to afford what her peers had. Even then, that still wouldn’t be an excuse to dismiss the twins upon first meeting them or taking advantage of someone else’s money,
Their parents sucked but she was awful too. I think you might need to rewatch the movie, because I disagree with some points. Honestly, there's no reason to try to redeem every single "badass" character.
This is a stretch imo.
She explicitly states that she likes him because he is rich - twice. While that isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be if they get along and both gain something from the relationship it does mean that as a new wife she isn’t reliable. If Nick were to get sick or the winery were to fail she would be gone and with California laws being what they are she’d be gone with half his assets. Again Nick knows this and she’s obviously attracted to him (or is a very good actress) but we can’t blame Nick’s 11 year old daughter for not warming to a woman who she feels may hurt her dad.
Also we need to remember that it is Annie, who doesn’t know Nick and adores Elizabeth, who meets Meredith not Hallie. She’s going to be more irrational about protecting her mother’s place in Nick’s life because she knows that her mother still pines for him. I think had Hallie gone to California and met Meredith without hearing from Annie about her and meeting Elizabeth first she’d still be miffed but she’d see her dad’s chemistry with Meredith and be less hostile at first.
I think also the fact she doesn’t like children is important and fairly used against her because she was, as far as she knew, marrying a single father with full custody. Eventually her hostility was going to become a factor when you live with someone. Even if Nick didn’t seem to be pushing a mother daughter relationship which I thought was a nice touch by the writers.
Um no, she got a bell for Chessy. This video definitely a bad take.
I kept waiting for you to be like "lol jk." She's a villain. Being able to understand or "pity" a bad guy doesn't neutralize their badness. I still can't believe this is seriously anyone's opinion 😂
EXACTLY. Villains are _supposed_ to have believable motives to be a well written character, does she expect every villain to just be like “I’m evil so I’m going to take over the world”.
Exactly, this video was just so dumb 💀
Nope nope. I had the misfortune to know a Meredith Blake and nope, she's a villain 100%. Fake, maipulative, at the end controlling. She's an adult competing with children, that is never not a villain.
Meredith was pretty two faced. One minute she’s being all “I love this adorable kid” to Annie and Hallie “you brats are screwed”
Meredith wanted to get married for money, the dad wanted to get married with her because she was hot and young. Why are we only criticizing the woman??
I understand where you are coming with this but I disagree. I don’t think being rude to children, people of a lower class, and liking someone for their money is feminism.
I was so ready to roll my eyes at all of the comments agreeing with this video, but it's nice to see everyone refuting it. Meredith is iconic, classy and fabulous, but that's as far as it goes.
I guess I always approached her character with more nuance. I definitely don’t think that she is the villain in the movie makes her out to be, but she’s also not a good person. Wanting to have the girls’ father all to herself, calling them names, and threatening to send them away is not how a mature and healthy adult handles things.
I’d like to add, the scene where she’s ringing the bell to get Chessys attention, Nick doesn’t stick up for Chessy! THAT MAKES HIM JUST AS BAD
Heck yeau
Can we acknowledge that a trope is sexist without trying to make 3d chess moves to justify them as a good person?
As someone who's dated a person with children, if I started treating the kid like she did, I'd be 100% in the wrong no matter WHAT they did to me. The father should deal with the kids, and if he doesn't, leave. Do NOT stoop to the kid's level and beef with them.
OK, Ok, I usually love your videos but this time I strongly disagree. I did watch and re-watch the film as an adult, and I still do not like Meredith (that does not mean I approve what the other characters did). WHY is it SO HARD to believe that people like her actually exist? Why is it impossible to believe that being a gold-digger and a wicked step mom is NOT only due to misogyny? Yes, that is a big part of it, but believe it or not THERE ARE SUCH people IN REAL LIFE, a friend of mine being just as a horrible step mom as Meredith. She literally cannot stand the daughter of her partner and she shows it. She does not even try. These kinds of people exist in real life, no matter how much we try to believe that everyone is good, kind and misrepresented. And no, this does not mean all women are like that. Life is more complicated than archetypes, but sometimes, in some unfortunate cases, these are based in reality.
I get where you're coming from but Meredith's problem wasn't that she was unlikable because she wasn't a people pleaser or a nice woman, she was unlikable because she wanted to send the twins away and she was marrying Nick because of his money. Also she disrespected Chessy, which was like an aunt to the girls. Not that Nick was a saint, he handled the situation terribly and was going to marry a woman without telling her that he had a second secret child in London.
This is ridiculous. A good person would never threat one girl as she did with Annie, no matter if the girl is “problematic”. She was the adult in this situation.
I feel weird commenting before I’ve watched - but my defense against the victim argument is just the fact that she asked him to choose her or his children
nah meredith was marrying the dude for money and planned to get rid of his kid from the beginning, you wouldn't catch me defending her even if i like her
Are Villain or Victim the only options for what women can be? 😭😂
Meredith Blake was a terrible and insufferable person though. In this video, you are basically tearing down other women to make Meredith seem less of a bad person. Doesn’t that go against everything you’re trying to say?
What women did she tear down?
@@quinn.j4381 her soon to be step children for example who are literally kids
@@quinn.j4381 The twins, Chessy and even the twins‘ mother
For me the true villain is Nick, honestly. But I also wouldn’t justify Meredith’s actions. She should have been the adult of the situation and spoken to Nick and the twins if she really had been in love. Engaging with children in such a way is never okay; they’re learning to control their feelings, one is supposed to guide them, not talk back to them. For me if she really loved nick she would have tried her hardest to bond with the children, like in Stepmom, but nooooo. And well, of course Nick is the villain because he left them to their own devices instead of talking to them
the real antagonists are the parents for separating the twins and never telling them the truth
Today everything is internalized misogyny. Sometimes I am embarrassed by the overuse of this concept. It even seems paranoid
Nick, Meredith and Elizabeth are all the villains. Elizabeth and Nick for separating and isolating the twins for each other. Meredith for marrying Nick for his money and competing with the twins for Nick's attention.
She's the villain because the movie is from the children's POV and she's generally a mean-spirited selfish person. Sure we can have compassion for these characters but she's still the villain, it's really not that deep.
As even Marilyn said “why should she not want the very best for herself?” Although the ultimatum of her or the kids should have been obvious to her, they’re already his family. Also I know plenty of people who went to boarding school because of family tradition or better education opportunities and many of these schools were like mini college dorms for their entire school life. So it’s not like they were being sold or something awful, and I’m sure their dad wouldn’t have let it happen if he didn’t think it was beneficial either. Parenting is hard, especially when the people trying to parent as best they can are still flawed humans like everyone on this planet.
She didn’t want to send Annie to boarding school because of any of those reasons, let’s be real. She called her two faced and named the furthest country she could think of. She was being petty and devious.
Well an boarding school don't *have* to be a bad thing, but if you see it in the context of the movie, i think it's very clear she would just sent them to one to get rid of them, not to give them the best yk
The problem was that the kid in question did not want to be sent away and Meredith's intention was not to give Annie better education. Furthermore, I do believe children sent off to boarding schools at a young age used to show signs of emotional trauma back in the day, so it is clearly something to be careful about.
@@msk-qp6fn Indeed, why are we pretending that a lot of children didn't suffer from (several forms of) abuse on boarding schools? It's so obvious that being away from basically everyone you know at such a young age, even more when it's not what you want to do, will traumatize children in a lot of cases.
@@bun0500 even if the boarding school is wonderful and try their best to make it a happy place, being sent away from your parents without actually wanting to go to boarding school is traumatic.
But she IS just a golddigger? She mentions it multiple times!
I think we’re putting tooo much responsibility on Annie and Hallie to have been mature and respectful in the situation when they are trying to unpack a major trauma. Even if Meredith wasn’t made aware that Hallie was a twin, she knowingly began a relationship and engagement (in 2 months might I add) with a man whom she knew had a child…also, one doesn’t just stumble onto the idea to put a child in boarding school so I’m guessing she’d been sitting on that for a while. And it is EXTREMELY important to look at how anyone treats ppl in a service job. The fact that she got a bell to order Chessy around should’ve raised some BIG red flags 🚩 I don’t want children either, but it’s not like I’m going around seeking out men with children. I don’t think that women who are career driven and don’t want children should be villainized, but in Meredith’s case getting engaged after a few months of working for a successful business man and going to war with his children doesn’t look good for her 🤷♀️
This trend of trying to make villains more sympathetic is kind of weird to me because I understand that humans are flawed and are multifaceted, but these r are fictional characters…they were intentionally written to be villains. That’s it. And even if you did want to draw parallels to reality, in reality sometimes peoples bad qualities outshine the rest, sometimes people have shitty upbringings and become shitty adults that do bad things and are bad people.
Trying to say that Meredith Blake, Regina George, or Sharpay Evans weren’t really villains is like trying to say a serial killer was justified in being a serial killer because they were passionate, driven, and were mistreated by someone in their life.
AND it’s so weird that the characters everyone wants to rectify are blonde haired, blue eyed, white women whose real life counterparts would be Karen’s 🤔 Meredith, Regina, and Sharpay all benefit and come from privileged affluent backgrounds. And y’all want me to sympathize with them because they connived and schemed and still didn’t get the man? I need y’all to STOP 😭🤚🏼
She was indeed the villain not a victim
First of all: immature and abuses kids. The way she treated the girls is simply unacceptable for anybody older than 19.
Second: I highly doubt she was ever really in love with Nick. That can be clearly seen in the private conversations she has with her parents. And sure, he’s hot, but I doubt there’s an actual interest in personality that would make her want to marry him right away.
And like, hey, go ahead! Marry rich! Isn’t that what we all want? But don’t pretend that doesn’t disegard some people’s feelings and certainly no excuse to take poor care of kids you dispise
People say Nick is also a villain, but I feel like really he's just dumb. Can you imagine a parent trap story with the mother being the one getting married and then getting her happy ending?
I think it’s okay to see Meredith as a villain, and I think it’s been a long time that people have been aware how terrible the parents decisions were, and probably villains in their own right (even tho I adore Elizabeth~), I saw that take on tumblr yearrrs ago. I don’t see a reason to consider Meredith a victim though, whether or not she was marrying only for money or for financial security, she was an unkind person. I think vilifying the twins is weird, since they were only responding to Meredith’s escalating antagonism. “Meredith only got mean after Annie was a brat to her” Annie is a child, Meredith is a grown woman, if she really wanted to be a part of Nicks life, she would have understood that Annie/Halle would react accordingly, like a brat who’s used to having her only parent’s attention. I was a child who’s had step moms and I never took to them well at first because it is uncomfortable and strange until you form a relationship when they try with you, and I don’t think I would have cared for Meredith at all haha and that’s okay! I love watching how mean and girl bossy she is because she’s a sexy and fun villain! Idk that’s just my two cents
I do want to add that I agree it’s too bad they did stereotypical beautiful career driven woman is actually a gold digger, but idk I think someone else mentioned in the comments that Elizabeth is also a wealthy, gorgeous business woman, who works in fashion at that, and she’s kind (despite the weird divorce stipulations and lying to Annie abt having a twin but I digress, this is a movie) so i don’t necessarily think the movie showed “woman obsessed with job/getting ahead/being financially secure bad!” At a certain point I think u just have to agree Meredith is a b*tch and that’s okay 😅
as a child of divorce i absolutely hated her and was glad the twins did all of that to her but now that im older i realize she deserves better and they didn’t have to do all stuff to her.
was meredith a girlboss and an icon? yes. but was she justified in literally anything she did? no lol. she was only interested in nick for his money and perfectly serious about sending halley off to boarding school. the feminist takes in this vid are valid but i don't think meredith was the right character to try and defend as a misunderstood hero haha.
If we’re bringing this into real life, lets talk about why a much old man wants to marry a beautiful younger women.
He’s not THAT old. He’s probably in his early to mid thirties.
I mean if I had to take care of the daughters of my lover, but they're like annoying and disrespectful towards me I'd hate them too 🙄
Especially since the other adults keep trying to brush the whole thing off
Agreed, Meredith did try to play nice with the twins, but after they played several annoying pranks on her, you can't help but sympathise with her in the end.
Right? This is why I'm only dating childfree people, lol.
And they constantly try to ruin your relationship
Y’all would get mad at the children who are going through a traumatic event such as finding out they have a twin and their parents kept them apart for all those years but not the parents who literally caused it and let’s them get away with the pranks and mistreatment? Yeah, makes sense.
I don't think there's a way this character can be reevaluated more positively. She didn't want to send them to a boarding school for a better education (I get that she was in her right to be angry after her bed was thrown to the lake, but she had that plan since she only kne Halle), she just wanted to get rid of them. Of course she was behind Nick's bank account, it would just be too elaborate trying to justify her! She's the sntagonist here, and that's okay. You don't need to defend every good looking blonde character in 90's-00's films.
I agree with some points but this is a situation where all the adults are terrible including Meredith. Cheesy was treated like a severnt and not a person by Meredith she has every right to hate her it's not Internalize misogyny. Also it's completely valid to not like or want children but regardless on how they act your still an adult no matter how much you hate them you should treat them with respect. Meredith should have had a conversation with her fiance and his ex wife about setting boundaries and discipline before trying to shipping them away. It doesn't matter if the school is nice that kind of thing can be traumatic for children if not handled properly. Lastly if you don't like children don't date people who have children. Again this is a situation where all the adults are awful so Nick should've known this before getting engaged. While I agree hyper feminine characters are demonize and internalized misogyny is a problem at some point we need to understand people can just not like people for no reason. Women don't need men or men's influence to hate other women I know that from personal experience. Also I agree Meredith isn't a villain or victim she's still awful just like all the adults in this movie.
This video should have been an analysis of the styling of the character, and how her fashion choices show her background, ambitions, and personality. Cause let's be honest, she's the antagonist, and that's okay